Sunday, 20 January 2013

Young Justice: Invasion - Episode 11 Recap and Review

True Colours

Recap: The episode begins with the Atom and Bumblebee scuba-diving through some tunnels that are probably going to be revealed to be someone's body. Atom comments how interesting the things they're seeing are, and chides Bumblebee for touching them. She apologises but says that being there is cool, but rounding a corner they meet their objective, which also reveals that they're in Jaime's body. The evidence of this is a big metal spike sticking through the flesh into his nervous system. They try to cut Khadji off of Jaime from the inside, but this only ends up hurting Jaime as the Scarab releases nanobot anti-bodies to fight off Ray and Karen's assault.

They abort the procedure, while Khadji snaps at Jaime about how it had warned Jaime about how it won't allow him to get it removed. Jaime asks Ray whether they were able to get it off of him, but Ray gives him some bad news. News that they weren't able to get anywhere as the anti-bodies healed the damage as soon as it was generated and that it was too fully integrated with Jaime's body to remove while he's alive... Naturally Jaime is alarmed about this.

Title Sequence

And we're back with G. Gordon Godfrey, who is covering the recent revelations that the Reach leaked last week, about how the Justice League are wanted criminals in outer space, having covert ops units who attack targets of their choosing, and have a previously secret space station watching over the planet. Gordon says it isn't a question as to whether the League really have those things, after all, that was all proved a week ago. The question is how long will the public stand having these "lawless heroes" around before finally wising up and getting rid of them.

He then moves on to how awesome the Reach are for operating openly and without fanfare, and how they are even teamed up with "noted philanthropist" Lex Luthor to increase food production. Even offering public tours of their facilities, a detail that Gordon seems positively ecstatic about. He then praises them some more for acting with trust, openess and attempting to end world hunger, and asks why the Justice League didn't attempt to do that themselves.

It then pans out, and Nightwing says that obviously any partnership between LexCorp and the Reach isn't good news, and that they need to investigate. Dick then says that Tim will be heading one of the Teams, something that baffles Tim. Probably because he hasn't had a line in like eight episodes. Nightwing then says that Jaime will be in Tim's team, something that Jaime doesn't really agree with, on the basis that Khadji might decide to go all Reach Apocalypse on people if he's out in the field, but Dick says that the Scarab has had multiple opportunities to betray them in the past and hasn't, and right now he's the best shot they have gainst the Reach's tech. Khadji smugly tells Jaime that "the Nightwing" has flawless logic. Bart says that if Jaime's going then, which Dick said he figured was the case.

Which then leads into the final member of Tim's Team: Arsenal. He immediately asks why they're meeting in a dump of a warehouse when the League has a satellite avaliable, but Dick says that only senor members of the Team and League members are allowed there. Yeah, even if he's just being antagonistic because of his numerous traumas and ISN'T a mole, I still wouldn't have thought that having him on missions would be a good idea, especially against Lex Luthor, the guy who made his artifical arm. The thing might have a tracker in it or something.

They hea to LexCorp's facility in Smallville (of course, where else would it be). The Team seems to be being accompanied hy Jonathan Kent, who mutters about how LexCorp's new technology will put the rest of Smallville's farmers out of business, but the tour guide (who sounds biazrrely like Sarah Palin) says that the Reach and LexCorp infact plan to share their techniques with the entire agricultural community. Tourlady offers the tour a variety of "Reach enhanced" produce, which Tim asks whether that means it's been genetically engineered. The tourlady says that this isn't the case theough, and that the Reach just have ways of bringing out an organism's pure potential. Why torturing it until it responds, presumably. The Team bag up the produce as evidence, though Bart just starts eating it, because if it is potentially dodgy food made by people you know enslave humanity int he future, why not just start eating it randomly? The team sneak off to investigate what chemicals are being pumped into the vegetables...

Meanwhile, Sportsmaster has finally managed to see the Light to voice his annoyance over Black Manta's son killing his daughter some weeks ago. There's a brief awkward silence that seems to come from the Light trying to word their apology for Sportsmaster's loss while everyone in the room knows that the death of someone on the other side is something to celebrate. Sportsmaster demands reparations for his daughter being killed without his permission. Lex apologises and offers monetiary compensation for his loss, but Sportsmaster blows this off.

Saying that if word got around he took a pay off his reputation would suffer, so his code dictates that he should be allowe to kill Black Manta's son to even the score. BM angrily says that that isn't going to happen, so Sportsmaster tries to kill him instead by throwing a grenade at him. But the bomb is detonated at a safe distance from its target by Sportsmaster's replacement, Deathstroke, shooting it in midair. Yeah, turns out that the Light thought that something like this would happen. So Sportsmaster says that he thought that something like THIS would happen too, after which a wall explodes and he jumps out of it into an awaiting helicopter. In the chopper Cheshire gives him a look, basically implying she thought that he was an idiot for not just trying to kill BM on the quiet, but Sportsmaster says he needed to ask first as it frees up his actiosn while keeping his reputation intact.

Back in Smallville, the Team finally leave the toliets they'd been hiding for the pst several hours, and begin their mission properly. They sneak about, and Robin manages to ninja some of the Reach's "additive" away with surprising ease. The mission's a success, but before they could make thier clean getway Arsenal blows up the Lab. Hereby alerting the guards, and the Reach, to the Teams presence. Robin demands to know what Arsenal was thinking and he smugly says that he wasn't going to let Lex and his alien space buddies poison the planet and how he wanted to take the opportunity to make Lex miserable. Unfortunately it seems that Lex isn't miserable, in fact he seems positively amused after overriding the hacked cameras to show the Team's actions.

As Robin is trying to tell Arsenal just how badly he's messed things up for them, Black Beetle arrives. He turns out to be Lex's extra security. The Team fares pretty badly, which is unsurprising considering he mopped the floor with Wonder Girl last time. Robin asks why Jaime isn't going all out against him like last time, and Jaime says that wasn't him that time, it was the Scarab. He refuses to even think of doing that agin though, due to Bart's prophecy for the future.

Meanwhile, in the ocean somewhere, Black Manta has taken Vandal Savage to see Kal. Surprisingly BM seems genuinely upset about his son's condition, and how he's been robbed both of life and the prospect of an honourable death. He says how he's going to get revenge on Miss Martian for what he did to him. Savage says that as a father he understands BM's pain (possible Scandal reference?) and as such he's borrowed Psimon from Queen Bee to search through Aqualad's memories to try and rebuild his mind. As such, at the end of it Psimon should know more about Kal than even his own father. Uh oh.

Back at the fight, they manage to make a break for it, only to be ambushed in the corn field surrounding the complex by Black Beetle and a hitherto unseen Green Beetle, who appears to have a Martian host. Surprisingly though, Green Martian is actually a good guy and he combines his Scarab-based and Martian powers to assist the heroes in beating up Black Beetle, yay! They manage to knock BB out, and they all fly off to the Kent Farm, where it appears that Jonathan was actually the means the Team used to get in on the tour. Nightwing thinks him for the use of his barn, saying that until they know what Green Beetle's deal is they can't risk taking him to their last remaining HQ. Seems that he and Conner are good terms though, awww.

The Green Beetle explains that his name is B'Ars S'Oom and that, obviously, he's from Mars. He says that he's an archeologist back on Mars, and that two years ago he was on a dig when he discovered his scarab, which attached itself him to him. From it, he learnt about the Reach, and how millennia ago they sent one scarab to every planet supporting primative life so that it would attach itself to a host, take control of it and use them as advance operatives in their upcoming invasion. Jaime says that must be why they want to reboot his scarab, as it malfunctioned and left him in control instead of the other way around. Dick asks the Martian how he managed to avoid being taken over, and he explains that his Martian physiology wasn't something the Scarab was prepared for so he was able to take it over instead. Nighwing says that doesn't explain what he's doing here though. B'ars explains that for decades the Martian Manhunter has sent television signals from Earth to Mars (which are quite entertaining, yeah seems that M'gann isn't the only Martian to love TV), and from this he learned that the Reach were on Earh and that his assistance was probably required.

Dick says that the Justice League will need to confirm his story, but he thanks him in the meantime. He then goes on to ask Tim how the mission went, besides meeting their new friend, and Tim admits that Arsenal is a little "rought around the edges" but eveything worked out as planned. Nightwing says that he can't really ask for more, and walks off with the Additive to analyse it elsewhere. Jaime suddenly hears his new Martian friend speak to him telepathically. It seems that B'Ars felt Jaime's fear and tells him that there is a another way to avoid being taken over by his scarab...

Back at the facility, Lex is talking to Vandal about the intrusion. It seems that the overal damage was fairly mnor, and that the main secret behind the facility wasn't even discovered by the Team before they ran off. Soon, he says, the produce will be sent to every needy nation on the planet, and then everywhere else. Odd, he thinks, how one littel bottle can contain everything that a body needs, or everything that the Reach needs a body to have, pipes up Vandal. Lex does admit that the Team were surprisingly effective though, and that they'd managed to get away with a sample of the Additive. The solution to this? Forming a team of their own with the Abductees...

Review: Overall a good episode, though the seeds of where things my continue to go wrong in the future were laid on possibly a little thick. Arsenal's behaviour can't possibly end well for anyone, considering how unprofessional he is compared to his own clone.

It was nice to see Tim actually get something to do for once, and the logical expansion of the setting was actually fairly cool. Such as the Green Beetle, Lex considering hiring the Reach's abductees to act as a countersquad to the Team's own activities, and the Light's solution to Kal's mindwipe.

The Jonathan Kent and Deathstroke cameos were pretty cool, as was Jonathan apparently being on warm terms with Conner. Kind of bemused s to what's going on with that hair on Slade though. He seems to have a real mane going on there.